Isabel Ecclestone Mackay: Verses about Heaven

HOW hushed they were in Heaven that night,
How lightly all the angels went,
How dumb the singing spheres beneath
Their many-candled tent!

How silent all the drifting throng
Of earth-freed spirits, strangely torn
By dim and half-remembered pain
And joy but newly born!

The Glory in the Highest flamed
With awful, unremembered ray--
But quiet as the falling dew
Was He who went away.

So swift He went, His passing left
A low, bright door in Heaven ajar--
With God it was a covenant,
To man it seemed a star.

O STILLER than the fields that lie
Beneath the morning heaven,
And sweeter than day's gardens are
The purple fields of even!

The vapor rises, silver-eyed,
Leaving the dew-wet clover,
With groping, mist-white hands outspread
To greet the sky, her lover.

Ripples the brook, a thread of sound
Close-woven through the quiet,
Blending the jarring tones that day
Would stir to noisy riot.

And all the glory seems so near
A common man may win it--
When every earth-bound lakelet holds
A million stars within it.

A common man, who in the day
Lifts not his eyes above him,
Roaming the fields of even through
May find a God to love him!

O LITTLE brown bird in the rain,
In the sweet rain of spring,
How you carry the youth of the world
In the bend of your wing!
For you the long day is for song
And the night is for sleep--
With never a sunrise too soon
Or a midnight too deep!

For you every pool is the sky,
Breaking clouds chasing through,--
A heaven so instant and near
That you bathe in its blue!--
And yours is the freedom to rise
To some song-haunted star
Or sink on soft wing to the wood
Where your brown nestlings are.

So busy, so strong and so glad,
So care-free and young,
So tingling with life to be lived
And with songs to be sung,
O little brown bird!--with your heart
That's the heart of the Spring--
How you carry the hope of the world
In the bend of your wing!

MY soul has left its tent of clay
And seeks from star to star,
'Mid flaming worlds that are to be,
And fruitful worlds that are,
The Voice which spake and said 'Live on!'
(When Death said, 'You may die')
And sent my spirit wandering
The stairway of the sky.

Still must I seek what on the earth
I sought as fruitlessly--
The world I knew, the heaven I scorned
Lost in infinity:
Alone, and on the ageless breath
Of cosmic whirlwinds spun,
I hurtle through the outer dark
Toward some fantastic sun!--

O God! how happy is the leaf,
A sweet and soulless thing,
Dying to live but in the green
Of yet another Spring--
These heights, these depths, these flaming worlds,
This stairway of the sky
I'd give, had no Voice said 'Live on!'
When Death said, 'You may die.'

I WHISPERED to the bobolink:
'Sweet singer of the field,
Teach me a song to reach a heart
In maiden armor steeled.'

'If there be such a song,' sang he,
'No bird can tell its mystery.'

I bent above the sweetest rose,
A deeper sweet to stir--
'O Rose,' I begged, 'what charm will wake
The deep, sweet heart of her?'

'Alas, poor lover,' sighed the rose,
'The charm you seek no flower knows.'

I wandered by the midnight lake
Where heaven lay confessed
'Tell me,' I cried, 'what draws the stars
To lie upon your breast?'

The silence woke to soft reply
'When Heaven stoops--demand not why!'

'Alas, sweet maid, love's potent charm
I cannot beg or buy,
I cannot wrest it from the wind
Or steal it from the sky--'

Breathless, I caught her whisper low,
'I love you--why, I do not know!'

THE ladye's bower faced the sea,
Its casements framed a sea-born day.
She saw the fishers sail away,
And, far and high,
The gulls sweep by
Within the hollow of the sky!

She saw the laggard twilight come
And, chased by rippling wakes of foam,
She saw the fisher fleet come home--
Brown sails a-sheen
Against the green
With shadows creeping in between!

She saw, when it was evening, all
Day's banners stream in crimson rout
Till night's soft finger blurred them out,
And, high and far,
A perfect star
Shone where the keys of heaven are!

'O far and constant star,' she said,
'O passing sail, O passing bird,
O passing day--bring you no word
Of winds that steer
His ship a-near?
Where sails my love that sails not here?

'The days in splendid pageant pass,
In lovely peace the nights go by,
And day and night are sweet; but I--
I cannot say
Lo, the bright day!
Can it be dawn and love away?'

NEVER in all her sweet and holy youth
Seemed she so beautiful! The tired lines
Etch her white face with look so wholly pure
I tremble--dare I speak to her of aught?--
She is so wrapt in silence. Yet her lips
Part on a word whose honey she doth taste
And fears to lose by uttering too soon.
I know the word; its meaning is plain writ
In the wide eyes she turns upon the Child.
I dare not speak. No word of mine could find
Its way into a soul close sealed with God
And busy with the thousand mysteries
Revealed to every mother. The soft hair
Veiling her placid brow is all unbound,
Ungentle hands are mine but, trained by love,
She might conceive them gentle--yet, I pause--
I'll not disturb her thought . . . . .


What meant those men,
Far-famed and wise, who came to see the Child?
Their gifts lie by forgotten, though the Babe
Smiled on the shining treasure in his hands.
(Those tiny hands like crumpled bits of gauze)
Their sayings were mysterious to me.
'A King!' they said. What King?


The mother smiled
As one who knew; and it is true they knelt
As to a King. The thing disturbs me much!
I'll ask--but no . . . . .


The breathless shepherds, too;
Plain men, blank-eyed with awe, in broken speech
Stumbling some strange, glad tale of midnight sky
A-shine with angel wings! And at their word
Again the mother smiled, as one who sees
No wonder but what well might happen since
A child is born to her. Are mothers so?
And are they prone to dream the careless earth
And distant heaven wait upon their joy?
I'll speak to her . . . . .


What is that in her look
Which answers me--yet leaves me wondering still,
With wonder so like rapture that I seem
Caught up a breathless second into Heaven?
She turns deep eyes upon me, and she smiles,
Always she smiles! Ah, Mary! could I know
The source of that glad smile--what would I know?
I dare not dream, save that the mystery
Is not yet given . . . one day I may know!

O THE long days and nights! The days that bring
No sunshine that my shrinking soul can bear,
The nights that soothe not. All the airs of France,
Soft and sun-steeped, that once were breath of life,
Now stir no magic in me. I could weep–
Yet can I never weep–to see the land
That is my land no more! For where the soul
Doth dwell and the heart linger, there
Alone can be the native land, and I have left
Behind me one small spot of barren earth
That is my hold on heav'n!

You bid me tell
My story? That were hard. I have no art
And all my words have long been lost amid
The greater silences. The birds–they knew
My grief, nor did I feel the need of speech
To make my woe articulate to the wind!
If my tale halts, know 'tis the want of words
And not the want of truth.

'Twas long, you say?
Yes, yet at first it seemed not long. We watched
The ship recede, nor vexed them with a prayer.
Was not his arm about me? Did he not
Stoop low to whisper in my tingling ear?
The little Demon-island was our world,
So all the world was ours–no brighter sphere
That swung into our ken in purple heaven
Was half so fair a world! We were content.
Was he not mine? And I (he whispered this)
The only woman on love's continent!
How can I tell my story? Would you care
To hear of those first days? I cannot speak
Of them–they lie asleep so soft within
My heart a word would wake them? I'll not speak that word!

There came at last a golden day
When in my arms I held mine own first-born,
And my new world held three. And then I knew,
Mid joy so great, a passion of despair!
I knew our isle was barren, girt with foam
And torn with awful storm. I knew the cold,
The bitter, cruel cold! My tender babe,
What love could keep him warm? Beside my couch
Pale famine knelt with outstretched, greedy hand,
To snatch my treasure from me. Ah, I knew,
I knew what fear was then!

We fought it back,
That ghost of chill despair. He whom I loved
Fought bravely, as a man must fight who sees
His wife and child defenceless. But I knew–
E'en from the first–the unequal strife would prove
Too long, the fear too keen! It wore his strength
And in his eyes there grew the look of one
Who grapples time, and will not let it go,
Yet feels it slipping, slipping–

Ah, my dear!
I saw you die, and could not help or save–
Knowing myself to be the awful care
That weighed thee to thy grave!

The world held two
Now–one so frail and small, and one made strong
By love and weak by fear. That little life!
It trembled in my arms like some small flame
Of candle in a stealthy draught that blows
And blows again–one never knows from whence,
Yet feareth always– till at last, at last,
A darkness falls! So came the dark to me–
And it was night indeed!

Beside my love
I laid my lovely babe. And all fear fled;
For where joy is there only can fear be.
They fear not who have nothing left to fear!

. . . . .

So that is all my tale. I lived, I live
And shall live on, no doubt. The changeful sky
Is blue in France, and I am young–think you
I am still young! Though joy has come and passed
And I am gazing after with dull eyes!

One day there came a sail. It drew near
And found me on my island, all alone–
That island that had once held all the world–
They succoured me and bought me back again
To sunny France, and here I falter through
This halting tale of mine. And now 'tis told
I pray you speak of it no more!

If I would sleep o' nights my ears must close
To that sad sound of waves upon the beach,
To that sad sound of wind that waileth so!
To visions of the sun upon the sea
And green, grass-covered mounds, bleak, bleak, but still
With early flowers clustering here and there!